Monday 16 March 2009 05.11 EDT
First published on Monday 16 March 2009 05.11 EDT

DOCTORS BACK DONALDSON OVER ALCOHOL PRICE RISE

The search is on for what alcoholics might call a moment of clarity following the chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson's demands for a minimum price to be set on drink. His suggestions of a 50p-per unit tariff would lead to the doubling of the prices of the cheapest brands, the Mail and other newspapers say.

Broadly speaking, doctors appear to back Donaldson. Professor Ian Gilmore, a liver specialist and president of the Royal College of Physicians, said "all the evidence shows that price is one of the most important drivers of alcohol consumption and the amount of harm done".

"This could have a huge effect on underage drinkers, and heavy drinkers," he tells the Mail.

The drinks industry puts its case to the Mirror: "When you have a problem with speeding you don't put up the price of cars. You enforce the laws that are already there," Mark Hastings, of the British Beer and Pub Association, tells the paper.

The historian Tristram Hunt writes in the Times that agonising over the societal effects of booze is far from new: "As early as the 8th century, the missionary St Boniface was writing to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, to report how 'in your dioceses the vice of drunkenness is too frequent. This is an evil peculiar to pagans and to our race. Neither the Franks nor the Gauls nor the Lombards nor the Romans nor the Greeks commit it.'"

The paper, among others, reports that the government was quick to dampen any expectations that it would take up Donaldson's suggestions. "I do not think this is where we are going," said a source close to the prime minister. Those with memories not softened by the bottle may remember that Donaldson was among the first to call for a smoking ban.

BRITISH PENSION FUNDS TO SUE SIR FRED GOODWIN

British pension funds are to sue Sir Fred Goodwin and the Royal Bank of Scotland in the American courts for hundreds of millions of pounds, the Times reports in its splash.

"Cherie Blair has been hired by two local authority funds to seek compensation for the 'massive losses' incurred when RBS was bailed out and the share price collapsed.

"They claim that on multiple occasions RBS and Sir Fred, its former chief executive, 'falsely reassured' investors that the bank was in good health when it was 'effectively insolvent' because of bad loans."

ALLEGATIONS OF BRITISH COLLUSION IN TORTURE IN EGYPT

The Guardian splashes on new allegations of British collusion in torture this time in Egypt, where a young British man says he suffered appalling mistreatment during a week of illegal detention while being interrogated on the basis of information that he says can only have come from the UK.

Azhar Khan, a 26-year-old who has seen a number of friends jailed for terrorist offences, says Egyptian intelligence officers who detained him when he flew into the country last July forced him to stand on the same spot for five days, with little rest, while beating him and subjecting him to electric shocks. Throughout this time, he says, he was asked detailed questions about his friends and associates in the UK.

The Foreign Office admitted that it knew that Khan had subsequently complained that he had been tortured. The Guardian understands that Khan's allegations of mistreatment are supported by medical evidence.

DAILY MAIL CLAIMS VAZ INTERVENED IN COURT CASE

Now it's probably fair to say that were the MP Keith Vaz to find himself sitting next to the Daily Mail at a dinner party, the small talk would be a little awkward. The paper has published a string of stories taking Vaz to task. Today its splash claims that Vaz "intervened in a court case on behalf of a crooked friend".

"Vaz wrote to a high court judge trying to halt proceedings against a firm which had lavished hospitality on him and his family. Astonishingly, he signed it in his official capacity as chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which has a key role in law-and-order issues."

GOODY ENTERS FINAL HOURS

Both the Sun and the Mirror splash on Jade Goody and suggest the reality TV star who has terminal cancer is entering her final hours.

"Goody's devastated mum yesterday said the fading Big Brother favourite was clinging on to life 'hour by hour', reports the Mirror.

The Sun says: "Goody's young sons took flowers to her bedside yesterday in what could be one of their final visits to their beloved Mummy."

PAKISTAN PROTESTS

The later editions and websites pick up on the developing situation in Pakistan.

"Pakistan's government blinked first in its tense standoff with the country's lawyers and opposition as it agreed to reinstate the country's former chief justice hours before protesters were due to reach the capital, Islamabad," reports the Guardian website.

"The prime minister's announcement at dawn that Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would be sworn back in on Saturday capped a night of high drama and led activist lawyers to drop plans to march on the capital and stage a sit-in at parliament later in the day."

SPORT OVER THE WEEKEND

It was a topsy-turvey weekend in the sporting world with Manchester United losing and the English rugby team winning.

"The souvenir stalls on Sir Matt Busby Way presumably will not be selling any more of those T-shirts mocking Rafael Benítez as 'Deranged! Ludicrous! Insane!', suggests the Guardian after United's 1-4 home defeat to Liverpool.

Meanwhile, the five-try hammering of the French by the English rugger team earns players a photo spot on the front of the Times and the Telegraph, while the Mail does the same for Faryl Smith, the 13-year-old "diva" who "sang England to victory".

"As England fans left Twickenham yesterday in a state of joyful disbelief, Steve Borthwick, the captain, was promising that the 34-10 victory over France that had so impressed and surprised them was only a glimmer of what is yet to come," the Times' chief sport writers says.

"A cyclist is free to choose whether or not to wear one," Mr Justice Williams said in the ruling on an accident involving a motorbike and a cycle in 2005. But not doing so means "any injury sustained may be the cyclist's own fault and 'he has only himself to thank for the consequences'".

The national cyclists' organisation, CTC, says it is considering taking legal action to overturn the "wrong and ill-informed" decision.